In a recent investigation into cannabis oil, 44 products were tested for 16 different pesticides at Steep Hill Labs in Berkeley, California. The lab found that 41 out of the 44 products (or 93 percent of them) tested positive for pesticides at high enough quantities that certain states which regulate pesticides in cannabis products would ban them. "There are no failing levels in California [because] there are no regulations," explains Reggie Gaudino, vice president of scientific operations and director of intellectual property at Steep Hill. Only the city of Berkeley has a cap on total pesticides at 100 parts per billion—far stricter than statewide regulations in Oregon or Colorado, which have various multi-hundred part-per-billion caps on individual pesticides applied to cannabis.
In the manufacturing process, pesticides might also concentrate at higher rates than cannabinoids: for example, a cannabinoid like THC might concentrate fourfold, but a pesticide could concentrate twentyfold. With the trade-off of compact, potent, and inconspicuous THC comes an elevated risk of inhaling less appetizing chemicals. "The entire industry has to look to the right standard to build, and stop thinking of ourselves as, 'Oh we're the underground, everything is cool, we can just grow bud in the basement and sell it," Gaudino says. "If you want [cannabis] to be legitimate and a medicine, we have to start thinking like pharmaceutical companies do and grow our medical supply in a manner that is in accordance with medical use." That means not drenching the bud in toxic chemicals that could make sick patients sicker.
"There's not a ton of transparency in the [vaporizer] processes right now," says Aaron Justis, CEO of the LA-based Buds & Roses dispensary. But as the industry evolves, he says, people will start to demand higher quality products. And with more competition, those that aren't transparent about their processes, or who vend cheaply-made products, may ultimately get weeded out. Regulation due to debut in 2018 in California may also yield opportunities for legislators to hold vape companies accountable for the quality and safety of their products.
"It will change in the future, once they're lab tested and regulated. I would say the more pure the oil is, the better," says Justis. "That's what people want right now. Vape pens are a growing part of the industry; it's not going away."
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